Topic 4 – Searching

Activity 1 – Noodletools Site

http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/information/5locate/adviceengine.html

•  http://education.iseek.com/iseek/home.page

– A real mix of different information that wasn’t connected. Asked me to “target” my search to make it more specific, but even this didn’t really help

• http://infomine.ucr.edu/

– Very biased toward American sites and information

• http://libguides.com/community.php

– A much better site for general information for a geography teacher

• http://www.infotopia.info/

– Very biased toward American sites and information

Activity 2 – Google Features

• Advanced search – a lot more useful and specific sites just by using this
• File type – great if you want to find interactive powerpoints
• Language – not sure I would us this much, but good to know for suggesting to language teachers
• Site or domain – love the Australia.gov.au suggestion, there was heaps of good information there for older students
• Google Images – my son showed me this one – great for any image/picture
• Google Maps – found my house! Awesome!
• Google Earth – great for the Geography teacher or units on features such as landscapes or buildings
• Google News – current news items that can be shared with a class
• Google Books – great for doing a book search on a particular topic
• Google Scholar – a bit limited, but had some good articles on TLs

I have never used any of these features but Google Images before. I’ve listed them here so that I can refer to them in the future. It’s definitely changed the way I’m going to search in future.

Activity 3 – Knowledge 2.0

http://www.livebinders.com/play/play/77617

• I like the way a lot of the search engines are grouped under the heading More Great Search Engines – once you become more familiar with the strengths of each search engine, you’ll become better at finding the better search engine to use.
• I don’t have students I can test a search engine with, but had a look at http://www.schools.ash.org.au/lakemba/ingra56w.html

–       This gave me different information

Activity 4 – Boswell’s Guide

http://websearch.about.com/od/searchingtheweb/tp/web_search_simple.htm

• How to search the web more efficiently and effectively

Activity 5 – The Seven Habits Site

http://websearch.about.com/od/searchingtheweb/a/sevenhabits.htm

• Some great advice that I need to go back to, in order to absorb more.
• This would be a great starting place to give advice to students about how to search more effectively – could develop a whole term’s worth of lessons just on different search engines!
• One idea is to use different search engines/methods to find information on the same subject.

Search activity table

Search engine	Keywords	Hits	How useful?	Comments
http://www.dogpile.com/	discovery AND gold AND NSW	pages	The ones further down the page were more useful	Much better results when I did “gold rush” as an exact phrase and to include NSW
quinturakids.com/	“gold rush” NSW	none	Not at all	I think American based
education.iseek.com/	“gold rush”NSW	none	Not at all	Got American hits when I tried just gold rush
http://www.bing.com/?cc=au	“gold rush”NSW	heaps	Fabulous	It just proves to me that some of the “bigger” and better-known sites will yield more specific results to your search. However, I’ve also learnt to refine my search so that I get more of what I want.

 

References

Boswell, W. (2010). Web search made simple [ETL501 Topic 4]. Retrieved August 6, 2012, from Charles Sturt University website: http://websearch.about.com/od/searchingtheweb/tp/web_search_simple.htm

• I have learned heaps from this article – good to go back to at a later date.

Carlson, C. (2002). Notes from the technology trenches – the seven commandments of highly effective Web searching [ETL501 Topic 4]. Retrieved August 6, 2012, from Charles Sturt University website: http://www.llrx.com/columns/notes54.htm

• My biggest issue is wasting my time – if I can’t find it in 10 minutes, stop looking or try something completely different!

Cohen, L.B. (2012). Internet tutorials: Your basic guide to the Internet [ETL501 Topic 4]. Retrieved August 6, 2012, from Charles Sturt University website: http://www.internettutorials.net/

• My favourite “reading” – so much that I had a vague idea about has been explained in these tutorials.
• These tutorials will really help me lay the foundation for my students – I have learned so much here.

Hock, R. (2007). The extreme searcher’s Internet handbook: A guide for the serious searcher. (2^nd ed.) Medford NJ: Cyberage Books.

• This is an excellent resource for basic and advanced searches and using different types of search engines.
• Loved the glossary, which helped with computer terms.

Notess, G. (2006). Teaching Web search skills. Medford NJ: Information Today, Inc.

• Unable to obtain this book.

Shambles.net (2010). Google Earth lessons [ETL 501 Topic 4]. Retrieved August 6, 2012, from Charles Sturt University website: http://www.shambles.net/pages/learning/GeogP/gearthplan/

• Fabulous – there was heaps of stuff to play around with here, great for learning about maps, distances, geographical features. Perfect for the Geography teacher.

UC Berkeley Library. (2009). Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial [ETL 501 Topic 4]. Retrieved August 6, 2012, from Charles Sturt University website: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Strategies.html

• Initially I thought this was too “cluttered”, but it actually had a detailed summary of everything that I’ve learnt – a bit too detailed to use with kids, but great for adults.